Afterword to a Fight
by InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: After Stick has gone, an injured Matt, alone in his apartment, is left to fall apart and wonder about the meaning of the bracelet...


**A/N: Aside from the fact I'm going away all too soon (16 days) and will be gone for three weeks, I won't be doing much writing for now for the simple reason I've been putting too much pressure and stress onto myself. It's not good for me and I've been suffering with burn-out as a result of it. I'm sorry. I've just got to think of my own well-being here. I'll still be posting some stuff I've already written and hopefully when I come back from my trip I'll be feeling better and be back to my usual self. And thank you so much for your patience and support. I'd like to dedicate this to DalamarF16, whom I beta-read for, and I'd also like to stress I will still be available for beta-reading and editing, I just won't be outputting my own work. Once again, I'm very sorry.**

 **Matt**

Stick was gone. Again.

That seemed to be all he ever did - kill people and leave. In, out, trail of corpses clinging to him like a wet shirt. Now he had smashed up Matt's apartment, got his ass kicked mind you, but he was gone again. Gone. Despite the fact Matt knew his former mentor was a psychotic son-of-a-bitch if ever there was, processing his absence was hard. Especially after finding the bracelet, whole, undestroyed, a symbol that perhaps Stick wasn't a heartless monster after all. Or perhaps that guy, who could tell? After all these years, the obnoxious old man remained obnoxious, bitter and furious about everything and nothing.

Fetching himself a beer, Matt held the bracelet in his hands, turning it over, feeling the rough edges, where he had folded it all those years ago. Why had he made it? He had known even then that Stick wasn't the bracelet wearing type, but still, he had done it and he had regretted it ever since. Out of all the stupid things he'd done, this was one that still came back to haunt him. He drank, downing the bottle.

And then he got himself another.

At some point, he was uncertain when, sounds started to fuse together, it became harder to locate precisely everything that was going on around him. An argument from downstairs sounded like it was above him, a police car drove around and around his spinning head. He held the bracelet, feeling its robust delicateness in his hands, and beginning to cry ever-so-slightly as he thought back to those days in the orphanage. Standing up, he felt the world spin under his feet, a rush of pain flowing up his side and down again, and all he knew in that drunken, blurred moment, was that Claire would know what to do, Claire could fix this, the pain, not the sorrow perhaps, but oh the pain, she could take that away. To hear her voice again would be everything to him.

Staggering across the apartment, tripping over the toppled sofa and cursing himself for not paying attention, he fumbled for his burner phone, which was not where he had left it. He searched the entire apartment, eventually locating it only a few feet from where he had checked in the first place. Laughing nervously, he turned it on and whispered; "Call Claire" in a low, slurring voice. Miraculously, the voice control understood him and he heard it ring, Claire picking up swiftly.

"Matt? Are you okay?" concern rung out from her words, her answer almost immediate, as if she had been waiting for the call, terrified it would be something else she would hear.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just, iss nothin. Stick was here then he wasn't. Kicked his ass. But he left the bracelet behind. I thought he broke it. I heard him break it. I don't...I don't know anymore."

"Are you _drunk_?" Claire asked, incredulous. "Or just injured?"

"May have had a...few beers."

"More than a few, it sounds like," Claire, Claire, Claire, she laughed slightly, almost a reflex action. "You mentioned someone called Stick."

"Did I?" Matt didn't remember that. The details of what he said were foggy in his mind...Foggy. Shit. Foggy and Karen, they'd find out about this. Inside his head, he heard Foggy's terrified heartbeat, worse, how it turned to anger when his friend learnt the secret, saw the black mask discarded on the floor. Years of lies would come pouring out. No. No. _Not Foggy, please, keep Foggy out of this._

"Yes, you did. From what you said, it sounded like the two of you had a fight. Are you hurt?"

"A little." Unfortunately, even as the lie passed his lips, he walked full on into the remains of a table, hitting a particularly painful bruise on his leg, making a noise of pain as he did. Shit.

"I'll be right over, okay, Matt?" he didn't answer, but she took this as confirmation anyway. "You just take a rest, okay?"

"I'll be _fiiiiine_ , Claire." the uncomfortable drawl of the word, trailing off as he struggled to speak, the ragged breaths down the line, all clear signs Claire would, could pick up on. People, as a rule, weren't quite as perceptive as Matt Murdock - or Stick, for that matter - but such obvious warning flags would not go unnoticed. Especially not by someone as smart as Claire.

"Like I haven't heard that one before," she snorted. "This doesn't change what I said the other night, you know? People do crazy things when they're drunk and I just wanted to make sure we're clear, lay down some ground rules. I'll see you at your place?"

Matt grunted affirmatively, as he heard his nurse and not-girlfriend (what had Foggy called her? Hottie McBurner Phone? _Catchy_ ) hang up. Righting the sofa and laying back on it, he stared sightlessly at the ceiling, still clutching the ice-cream wrapped bracelet tightly in his left hand. Stick was gone. Again. He was an asshole, an egomaniac, a manipulative douchebag and - and he'd just killed a _child._ But he was gone. And somehow, that still mattered.

Somehow, that still hurt.

 **Claire**

This was not Claire's idea of fun but she'd got used to it. After the thing with the Russians, she'd had to get used to a lot of odd and not exactly enjoyable situations. Rushing to meet Mike - no, sorry, Matt, it was Matt - late at night was one of those things she just had to live with. As a nurse, it was almost her duty. To do the right thing. To make sure Matt could continue to dress in the mask and bring criminals to justice, no matter what those assholes in the press and the media thought of him. No matter what Claire herself thought of him. While she owed him much, her life, even, fishing a half-dead guy out of a dumpster had changed her life, and not always for the better. And of course, there was the eternal moral debate. Was Matt doing the right thing? He believed he was. Sometimes, that was all that mattered, faith. Faith was the guiding light in an otherwise dark world, the world that was simultaneously black as pitch and _on fire._

A world on fire, that was what he saw. That was what he woke up to, in the morning. How could anyone live with that? But Matt did, and she admired him for that. Even if all she could do was admire.

She took a cab to his apartment, remembering the location from the spectacular view of those billboards. Any other tenant might consider them an eyesore, but the again, very few other tenants had undergone the 'eyesore' that was having chemicals spilled in their eyes causing them to develop superpowers. Perfectly normal. In this day and age, that was hardly the weirdest thing. There were Norse gods and green giants (and not the one from the ad either), running around with Captain America and aliens, aliens, aliens. That and Tony Stark, whose entire existence was one big mystery and there was a conspiracy theory soaring online that, like the Mandarin, he was played by an actor, while the real Tony relaxed in a secret home in Alaska. Apparently. And that really wouldn't have been the weirdest thing to go down, given everything else that was out there in the big wide world. _Truth is stranger than fiction,_ Claire thought, gritting her teeth as she got out of the vehicle, tipping the cab driver generously. Right now, her concern was for the man in the apartment, drunk and battered after a fight with this mysterious 'Stick'. Nobody in this brave new world had a sensible name, did they? Stick. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matt Murdock.

Matt Murdock needed her.

Heading upstairs, she came to the door of his apartment and knocked, announcing her presence, but it wasn't locked and swung open easily. She wished it hadn't, then what she saw inside could have remained concealed. Far from the mildly austere, basic room she had seen before, entire plaster walls had been kicked down. Everything was in chaos, a wild ransacked look, except an aimless sort of ransacking, without a clear goal or objective. Nothing seemed to have even been stolen, just broken. Destroyed, mangled, warped, tossed about by a maniac decorator. A _blind_ decorator.

Where was Matt, in all this chaos? He had survived the fight, it was the aftermath that seemed ready to claim him. It looked like a bomb had gone off, and Claire did not use hyperbolic phrases lightly. This was a disaster-zone. _Matt_ was a disaster-zone, as ever. And he needed her.

"Matt?" she ventured, stepping over the remains of...of something, she wasn't sure what. A murmur, there he was, draped onto the sofa of all places, when it looked like he really, really should have been in bed. "Dammit Matt. I hope you have a good explanation for this."

"You weren't doing...anythin' important?" the idiot, the _massive freaking idiot_ smiled a pained, painful smile as he struggled to speak. "I hope I'm not ruining your life."

Her heart went out to him. Despite everything, he was a good person, that much she knew. He tried, he tried so hard, and the world paid him back like this. If they weren't lucky, he'd lose the ideals that kept him going and become a cynic, change sides, from the side of the people who stabbed him in the back and called him 'the Devil', to another, darker side. They were damn lucky he was a Catholic, that's all she was saying. Damn lucky indeed.

"Who's Stick?" she asked, getting straight to the point. If she was going to treat him, there was going to have to be some give and take. It wasn't all going to go the way of the Devil tonight.

"Nobody." Matt seemed aware of what he was doing and saying now, carefully trying to cover the secret. "Nobody important."

" _Oh,"_ Claire nodded. "Of course. Which was why you two had a little talk-it-out in here. Nice redecorating. The wall needs...more wall."

"'m sorry Claire. I shouldn't have asked you. I can manage on my own." Matt tried to get to his feet, and stumbled, staggering backwards. Claire rushed to him, maneuvering him back onto the couch gently. As the lawyer-by-day, vigilante-by-night slumped down into a sitting position, a delicately woven object fell from his loose, dangling arm.

It was a little bracelet, made from what looked like an ice-cream wrapper. It was old, having grown solid and strong as years had passed. Claire held it, staring at it as if she could unlock its mysteries with her eyes she turned it over in her hands, Matt sprung from his languid stupor taking her wrist and snatching at the bracelet, which she kept just out of reach until he gave up and lay down on the sofa. Only then did she relent and give it to him, shocked by the way he immediately tore it out of her hands and shoved it into a pocket. _Two plus two…_

"Stick left this?" she asked innocently, as if she wasn't probing for information.

"Doesn't matter."

 _Stubborn bastard._ "On the phone, you said Stick left the bracelet. This is important to you, Matt. Could you please respect me enough to tell me what you've got yourself into?"

Matt sighed heavily, and then gave in. She could see the surrender evident on his face, a non-verbal white flag. "He was my mentor. Born blind. Trained me...when I was a kid. Still am a kid to him. I-" he pulled himself up into a sitting position, the movement paining him as much as the information. "I gave him that bracelet, a gift. The first time we met...he gave me ice-cream, so…" Matt trailed off.

"You made this?" He nodded. "You said you thought he'd destroyed it?" Another unsteady, uneasy nod. "Why?"

"Because I cared about him." Matt started to cry. "After my dad died, he was...the closest thing to a father I had. Only he wanted a soldier. I disappointed him with my... _sentiment._ An' then he left."

Putting her arm around him, Claire hugged the vigilante tight, the so-called 'Devil' of Hell's Kitchen, as he wept. Then, conscious of the physical contact possibly relaying the wrong message, she stood up, somewhat awkwardly, opening the medical kit she had brought with her without saying another word. This hurt.

And if it hurt her, just imagine how Matt felt.

 _Imagine it…_

 **Matt**

He felt better now that Claire was here.

He felt _better._


End file.
